Yes, Sohna and I attended all three games this weekend with The New York Mets. The only time this season where there were consistently good crowds--both Saturday and Sunday drawing over 30,000 each day. But there is some real business that we need to work out that has made posting a story NOT AN OPTION this weekend. We simply just can't do it. Hopefully, this situation will be resolved soon enough.
Thanks for your support and understanding.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
17 comments:
OK. I hope everything gets worked out soon enough. Look forward to reading your next blog!
If anybody deserves a personal day, it's you. Hope all is worked out quickly.
Your dedication, inside reports, baseball knowledge & loyalty to the Nats has trully been missed.
Hurry Back
P.P.
Hope all is well...looking forward to your next post.
You know we are going to have to dock this from all the pay you get from your many readers and commenters!
Big day coming tomorrow with Strasburg and perhaps Crowe or that kid from Notre Dame at Number 10.
Nats should draw 1.85-1.95 million this season - not a disaster: two reasons are the park is great and the team has some hitting and promise (draws). Plus, school letting out, and Cubs, Red Sox coming to town, etc.
Stan needs to demand a team payroll of $80 million for 2010. He needs to make Rizzo the GM and do it now, too.
Nats passed on Orlando Hudson and made no serious bid for Tori Hunter - examples of tactical blunders. The three major trades by the franchise since 2005 for Chico and the Man; Lopez-Kearns; and Milledge have been fruitless.
Dunn the only major free agent acquisition thus far - fine for the money; but he should be dealt now to AL for value: miscast in the NL, playing defense.
The jury is out on the deal for Williamhan/Olsen. I suspect it is worth it for Williamham alone, once he plays everyday.
Guz cannot go three steps to his left. Kearns is a liability since he hits into double-plays to kill rallies, makes two outs, not just one.
Nats have one surefire player on the roster - Ryan Zimmerman. Nick Johnson would be second, if not for his injury past.
Those are the only two players other teams would give true value to obtain.
Team on pace to set wild-pitch mark allowing runs to score, I would think. Two more yesterday. Most errors, walks allowed, etc.
Manny needs to go, obviously, but it probably will not prevent the team from losing 110 games in 2009.
And yet, I feel hopeful for some inexplicable reason.
Trust in the National Pastime. And a bright future.
Hopefully the business is the good kind! Goodluck!
No more "Bang! Zoom!" :( DC put a (hopefully temporary) stop on a fireworks displays at Nationals Park. On top of everything else, that really hurts...
Fireworks will be reformulated and directed differently.
It was great meeting you in person at the Giants doubleheader. Hope everything works out soon as we all love getting your take on the Nats.
Dito what Let Teddy Win said
Listen, you can give us the scoop... we're all friends here... was Sohna offered the job to manage the Nats?
Nats are described by Peter Gammons kindly as trying to emerge "out of the rubble." Others not so kind - Nats becoming a standing joke. Chris Berman refers to them as the Washington Generals, for example. Gammon cites the current 5 young pitchers, Strasburg and probably Drew Storen drafted today, and the kid enrolled at Stanford as positioning team to emerge from the rubble in good shape in two years, by 2011.
Shame that Nats did not get Tori Hunter for five years at $20m per year for 2008-12; Orlando Hudson this year for $4 million; and Randy Wolf for $6 million. Malik group would have been making these kinds of acquisitions. As a result, Nats in 2009 would not have needed to pay $10 million for Adam Dunn - they would have a superb centerfielder, hitting .314 with 12 HR's; 43 RBI's and .972 OPS and gold glove fielding. They would have a second baseman hitting .315 with 33 RBI's; and a proven starting pitcher, 3-2, with 3.62 ERA. (They would not have had to waste $2.6 m on Cabrera.) And their defense would have been much, much better: probably would be hovering around .500 with payroll only about $17.5 million net more than current.
Imagine a healthy Flores and this line-up in 2009:
Guz SS
Hudson 2B
Johnson 1B
Zimmerman 3B
Hunter CF
Dukes RF
Williamham LF
Flores C
Lannan
Wolf
Zimmerman
Olsen
Detwiler
(Martis)
This speaks to why owners cannot rely on bargains and sheer promise across the board, as Lerners have. And that you must have mature operations managers given discretion and trust. Most importantly, by insisting on a 10% return on investment in the first three years, Lerners have come perilously close to losing a substantial part of their equity - not wise investment strategy at all!
Will take years to shake the onus of two presumptions: 1. Washington cannot support baseball; and 2. Nationals are a joke. Now - everything that goes wrong will be used in exagerated form by national pundits.
Kasten needs to point out why a budget needs to be set at $85 million - might not all be used, but probably will be - and that it will involve a blend of proven veterans, etc. Only by playing around .500 while the young pitchers develop can this ship be righted. In the past two years, signing Hunter, Hunter, and Wolf and not signing Dunn and Cabrera would have meant only $17.5 million more in payroll. And it would have resulted in about 400-600k more fans in all probability - resulting in the same bottom line for this year, AND building a base for 2010 season ticket sales.
Trust in bonus babies. And not starving the boy. All Learning...
hey everyone,
I am an avid toronto blue jays fan, and i am planning to attend your homestand vs my club. However, i was wondering if anyone could assist me with the location of the visitors team exit, so i can acquire autographs of my favourite players for my personal collection which is pretty hard to do in Toronto, as they exit in their nice cars.
I'm a life-long phils fan but wish the nats well and hope they get better. One thing I notice are stories and interviews with him about how tough it is for poor Adam Dunn to be playing on this team-how he's used to winning etc. But from watching nats games I constantly see him botch balls in the outfield and decline to even go after the ball when he does! Maybe the nats wouldn't be so bad if Mr. Dunn showed more of an effort to the rest of the team-why should the rest of the team try when Adam can't even bother to try? He has to cost this team more runs than he produces. Shame the manager doesn't pull a Billy Martin/Reggie Jackson and send out another outfielder right after Adam screws up another easy play and maybe embarrass Mr. Dunn into putting a little more effort into his fielding the next time. It seems to me that he is being paid alot of money to be a cancer on this team.
"Malik group would have been making these kinds of acquisitions."
Really, SenatorNat? From Fred Malek's very own blog, dated Monday, February 4th 2008:
With all my various involvements in life, I must say that my achievement in helping to bring baseball to Washington is among my proudest. So I was quite pleased to see the Washington Post describe me this way in its story on DC-area fundraisers for presidential candidates:
“[W]ould-be D.C. Nationals owner Fred Malek is backing McCain.”
Yes, I wish I were among the Nationals owners. But the team they do have on top is doing a superb job. Almost as good a job as John McCain is doing.
http://www.fredmalekblog.com/category/washington-nationals/
Note that this was a full nine months before the American public certified John McCain as a loser. So Malek here is complimenting the Lerners, not disrespecting them.
So why do you think the Malek group would have done anything differently?
Hope all is well, thanks for everything you both do.
Malek is a life-long Republican, so that explains his support for the ticket in 2008; he is also a gracious man, which explains why he says gracious things about the group that did get the team. Yet, he is a conservative Republican, a Nixon-Reagan Republican, not of the McCain side of the party, so it could be interpreted as a clever double whammy, knocking both!
Point is: the other groups had more fire for the proposition than dour Lerners.
Trust in Stan the Man. All Good.
Post a Comment